A Parisian Adventure
by Phan24601
Summary: An unexpected journey ends up bringing about a warning that Les Amis will never forget regarding their fates in the coming revolution, but will they choose to fight, with this new knowledge they have received, or will they back down in the face of death?


Caitlin was visiting Paris, France on the night of June 4th, 2014 to see if there would be any festivities on the 5th or 6th in remembrance of the fallen Parisian kin in the June Rebellion of 1832-the Barricades, of course-when she noticed something rather odd next to the statue erected in memory of Victor Hugo: there was a strange-looking tollbooth from olden times right next to it. She approached it with caution, and upon closer inspection, it appeared to be an old-fashioned phone booth. Caitlin then decided to call her family at home and thank them for sending her on this very important trip, for it was something she had wanted to do ever since her obsession with _Les Misérables _began in her sophomore year of high school. After pressing a few buttons; however, it became apparent that this strange "phone booth" was more than it seemed. Since she was trying to call home, Caitlin started typing the number:1-8-3-2...and then there was a bright flash of white light which rendered her blind.

When she regained her eyesight, Caitlin saw a very busy square full of the hustle and bustle of hundreds of people wearing very outdated clothes. The ladies were all dressed in tattered and ripped dresses of colors which seemed as though they were once bright, while the men wore suits of many colors with lots of accessories, especially buttons. This scene seemed eerily familiar to Caitlin, and as she scanned directly across the way, she saw a young man who looked just like someone she knew all too well, but who? The familiar face then walked right into her. Surprised, he said, "I didn't see you there, forgive me."  
After hearing these words spoken, Caitlin realized exactly where she was and who this handsome young man was."B-B-Baron Pontmercy?" She stammered in her surprise.

He then turned around and replied, "Do I know you?"  
Caitlin turned red in the face and said, "Well, probably not, but I certainly know you. I'm so sorry. My name is Caitlin Graeber. Were you headed to the Café Musain, by any chance?"  
Marius looked back at her with a confounded look on his face and said, "Yes. How did you...?"  
"No time to explain...at least not here. Could you lead me to the café? I'll explain everything once we get there. It will be easier."  
Without any further questions, Marius led his new acquaintance to the Café Musain, where they were met by Enjolras, Grantaire, Combeferre, Feuilly, Courferac, Jean Provaire, Joly, Bahorel, and Lesgle. Caitlin almost fainted at the sight of so many famous characters-in her mind-all right in front of her face. She had so much to tell them. There were still two important people missing, though.  
"Where are Gavroche and Éponine?" She asked, looking about her person for them.  
Before she could get her answer; however, she was confronted by a man with a head of beautifully unkempt blonde hair, all the while noticing the strange looks the other students were giving her.

"Marius, who have you brought with you tonight?" the familiar voice of Enjolras rang through the café as he looked to this unusually-dressed young woman with a skeptical sort of face.  
Marius-who Caitlin thought had been acting strange since meeting her, almost lovestruck, she thought-was rendered speechless.  
"I am Caitlin Graeber. I have come with a very important message-a warning-for you and all of the students. It is a matter of life and death!" Caitlin explained.  
"But how can we trust you? I hardly even know you," replied Enjolras.  
"You must trust me...I know you, and all the other Amis, for that matter. If you would give me a few hours of your meeting tonight, I could explain everything. It concerns you and all of the students here tonight," she began.  
Enjolras looked at Caitlin and said, "All right, you can have as much time as you need to tell what you feel you need to say."  
"Thank you. I-" but she never got to finish what she was going to say, for at that exact moment, Gavroche ran into the café, and, after he felt he had everyone's attention, he hollered, "General Lamarque is dead!"

The initial reaction of Les Amis was to look to Enjolras, but he was looking at Caitlin. This was as good of a time as ever, she supposed, to explain herself to the students.  
"All right, everyone! My name is Caitlin Graeber. I must tell you guys about myself, and why I am here. I am from the year 2014, and I live in America. I believe I ended up here by mistake, but I also know that today is June 4th, 1832. You are all meeting here to plan the rebellion which is supposed to be tomorrow, because after you received Gavroche's unhappy news you all decided that the barricades should rise at General Lamarque's funeral tomorrow. Well I know how that ends. This is what I must tell you about. If you decide to fight at the barricade, you will all be dead by the 6th! Well, except for Marius...but what I say is true! This grim news comes from someone who has travelled through time, and knows very well what your fates are."

After her explanation, Caitlin looked about at the students, who were all staring at her in terror and surprise-probably that a woman would take such a role of leadership in their time period, she thought-all but one. Grantaire was looking at Enjolras with a look that was very familiar to Caitlin in his eyes. It was a look that she had been seeing in Marius' eyes all night.  
_Oh great, a look of lust...then that means..._she thought to herself  
"Marius! I must speak with Marius, right away!" Caitlin shouted once she had come out of her thoughts.

"Marius! Where are you?" Caitlin looked around frantically, trying to find him. She just had to find him, and as soon as she could.

In her mind, she kept thinking _No, it cannot be, but why me?_ Then she remembered_...He met me in the square...he never even met Cosette!_

At this point, she had finally found him, looking all dreamy-eyed back at her.

"Marius! So glad I found you. I have to ask you something," she said.

"What is it?" He asked, with much difficulty.  
"Are-are you in love with me? Be honest...like I said, I know a lot about your history, and I may have altered everything for you by getting in the way of a crucial point in your life story. Do you love me, Marius?"she questioned.  
"Umm...I-I..."he stammered back, turning a floral shade of pink.  
"That's enough. I think I get it." Then, with a thought, she added, "Do you...sing?"  
"I suppose I could, but the only songs I know are in French..."he replied.  
"Oh, that's ok...French is a very romantic language." Caitlin said, with a certain sophisticated air.  
"Ok, well, here goes_...Le cœur au bonheur..._"he started.  
Caitlin's response was less than hoped for, as she tried, and failed, to keep herself together, lost her breath, and finally fainted.

"Caitlin...Caitlin..."  
Caitlin was greeted by many concerned looks as she came to and finally opened her eyes. She was sort of confused by all of the strange faces and outdated clothing, but then she remembered again.  
"Oh, my goodness, I'm so sorry you guys, that has never happened to me before. Marius, that singing voice was absolutely divine,"Caitlin explained. "Umm...could I speak to Marius outside, alone for a minute? We promise I won't faint again," she said with a laugh.  
"You wanted to talk to me?"asked Marius.  
"Yeah. Ok, so you love me, and, well I should certainly think that a compliment, especially considering that you look like my favorite Marius in the history of "Les Mis"...Forget I said that...but anyway, you have three basic choices: One, you can leave with me and go to my time period. You could escape all of this, completely unscathed, and we could go live together. Second, you could stay here, meet this other girl-whom your history would say you met, and fall in love with her. This would guarantee that you would survive the battle. Finally, you could just go and fight, in which case, you would probably die with the rest of the students."  
"Woah, that's a lot to take in. Wait, I was supposed to fall for another girl? I can't imagine any other girl more beautiful than you,"Marius replied.  
"Awww...thank you..."Caitlin was stricken speechless after that, for she had never been given such a nice compliment by a member of the opposite sex before in her lifetime. Then he took her hands and gave her a sweet little kiss on her lips. Overwhelmed with so many beautiful aspects of life occurring in such an unexpected way, Caitlin felt feeble, as though she might faint again, but she remembered her ultimate mission here and said,  
"I suppose I know what you want to do, then...you'll escape with me, right?"  
"I would not rather have it any other way," he said.  
"Ok, let me go talk to the other Amis and find out what they are planning to do. We will leave after I have discovered their plans," Caitlin explained. "Oh, and steer clear of Éponine as much as you can...don't tell her our plans together, ok?"she added, remembering that Marius didn't see Éponine's absolute infatuation with him.  
"Ok I'll wait for you, mon petit chérie!"he said with a smile.

Upon reentering the Café Musain, Caitlin was met with a scene of disarray. Everyone was trying to debate the purposes of their great revolt which was still supposed to happen upon the morrow. That was, everyone except Grantaire, who looked at Caitlin and said,  
"You two lovebirds done squawking out there? Yes, I saw that." The last part was added when he saw Caitlin's cheeks turn positively red with embarrassment.  
"Well, yes, for now...we have come to an agreement which I must discuss with Enjolras," she said. Enjolras, upon hearing his name spoken, came to meet her.  
"Yes? I heard you say my name," he said.  
"I trust you and the other students have been figuring out whether or not you will fight tomorrow, yes?" she questioned.  
"Well, yes. It appears as though most of us are still very much committed to our cause, even in light of your terribly dreadful news. It appears as though we will be fighting tomorrow,"he said, with a confident air.

Caitlin's face fell. She thought that might happen, but in her secret heart, she hoped that would not be their decision.  
"Well, Marius will not be joining you guys...he's leaving, forever," Caitlin said, the smile returning to her face. "Oh, and I have one other thing I'd like to ask of all of you, and one thing just for Enjolras," she added under her voice.  
"Anything, for someone who came to us with such a noble mission...you basically warned us against this revolution as a threat to our very lives, and if we weren't so committed to our position, we would probably heed your warning much more," he said, as a gesture of thanks to her.  
"Ok well, I would love it if all of the students present could sign this napkin, just as a keepsake for me...I know it's silly, but I never want to forget this night," Caitlin said.  
"And what do you want from me?" asked Enjolras.

Unfortunately, what would have been her immediate response was interrupted by another girl's voice, full of envy, shouting:

"OK, WHO THE HELL IS THIS 'CAITLIN' AND WHAT DOES SHE THINK SHE'S DOING WITH MARIUS?"

"Oh, no...Éponine...how did you find out...?" Caitlin murmured.

"YOU! You can't have him!"Éponine replied, her voice filling with rage.

"Éponine...I'm so sorry...Can I talk to you for a minute?"

"No, but you can have my fist in your face!"

Caitlin gasped as Enjolras tried to calm Éponine down, holding her back so she would be unable to get to Caitlin.

"Woah, woah. Éponine...calm down," Enjolras said.

"Hey, sis, let Caitlin talk," chimed in Gavroche.

"Ok, fine! I give up!" Éponine declared. "What did you want to talk to me about?" Éponine asked with a calmer tone of voice.

"Well," Caitlin started, sitting down at one of the tables, "I was hoping I could ask you and Gavroche to do me a favor, of sorts."

"Like what?" Gavroche responded, coming over to where the two girls were talking.

"Well, first I wanted to ask if you two could possibly sign your names on that napkin that I sent around for all the students to sign. That's the easy part."

"Easy part?" Éponine asked, crossing her arms. "Look, Caitlin, I'm already kind of irritated with you for that business with Marius-"

"Forget Marius, for a second. The second part is: I want you and Gavroche to get out of this mess before it gets any uglier. Gavroche, did you hear me when I said that everyone involved in the barricades would die?"

"Yeah, and...?"

"Gavroche, that includes you, and your sister," Caitlin said in a grim tone of voice.

Éponine gasped.

Gavroche replied with "Oh."

"Wait, but how can we trust you? Who are you?" Éponine asked.

"Well, I'm from the future, and I'm quite familiar with your stories. In my time, you two are very famous. In fact, you both have two of the biggest fan bases of all the characters from your story!" Caitlin explained.

"Oh, really?" Éponine asked, starting to become more enthusiastic.

"Yes. Oh, here's that napkin." said Caitlin, passing the napkin to the Thénardier kids.

"So what was the other thing you wanted us to do? You said we would both die if we fought, and so...?" Éponine asked, as she handed the napkin-now covered in scribbled signatures from everyone in the café-to Caitlin.

"Right," said Caitlin, admiring the signatures for a second, "So I want you two to leave together. Go wherever you want to go. You can play mother," she said, glancing Éponine's way, "and you can pretend to be her son," she said to Gavroche.

"Eeeew!" shrieked Gavroche.

"Well, I'd be up for that, but where would we get the money?" questioned Éponine.

"Ah, right here," said Caitlin, presenting them with a large stack of American dollars.

"Um, thanks but what are we going to do with that?" asked Éponine.

"Take it and exchange it for French money, of course. Just don't tell your parents that you're leaving, and don't tell anyone where you decide to go, or else people might try to come and find you," Caitlin cautioned.

"Well, thanks, Caitlin!" exclaimed Éponine. "You take good care of Marius for me, ok?"

"Will do, Éponine!"

As they were leaving, Enjolras approached Caitlin.

"Thanks for saving my butt back there," Caitlin said.

"So what is is you wanted to talk to me about?" he asked.

"I have something I need to ask you about, alone," she replied.  
"Ok..."he said, puzzled.  
"There are a few things...aspects of life, that I think everyone should experience, at least once in their life..."Caitlin began, and soon she found herself beginning to ramble as the conversation became more and more awkward.  
"Woah, woah, Caitlin, I think I know where you're going with this...and, well I don't know that we could..."his thought trailed off a bit, and she picked it up.  
"Look, I know what you are thinking, and it's ok. I'm 19, and the age of consent is 16 here anyway. I also am aware that you might not exactly be as attracted to me as someone like Grantaire, but this is an experience that can only happen between one heterosexual couple, and I have heard that it is quite an experience, at that..."she explained.  
"Wait, you have never...Are you sure you want me to..."Enjolras continued, trying to successfully finish a sentence.  
"Enjolras, it would be an honor for you to be my first. Don't worry about a thing, I'm sure it will be all they say it is, and more," she replied with a seductive look in her eyes.  
"Well, ok..."he said, shyly.  
"You just have to promise not to tell anyone. I mean I'm going to leave as soon as I possibly can after this so that I don't get caught up in tomorrow, but just don't tell anyone, ok?"she said.  
"I won't. It's kind of a private thing for me, too," Enjolras replied.  
And the two bodies came together to form one beautiful whole.

As Caitlin awoke, she looked around to find the sleeping figure of Enjolras next to her, completely naked. The same could be said of herself. Then she remembered the events of last night and began to get up and dress herself. The change in the weight dispersion on the bed awakened Enjolras, who immediately began to search for his clothes.  
"What did you think?" Caitlin asked.  
Enjolras simply smiled and said, "Thank you so much for what you gave me last night...it was a beautiful and incredible experience."  
Caitlin only had the chance to reply with a smile, as what would have been her response was cut off by a familiar face, bursting open the door.

"Enjolras? Caitlin?"Courferac asked.  
"What is it?" Enjolras asked, after successfully retrieving his clothes and now being half-dressed.  
"Umm...Jean Provaire, Feuilly, and I have some strategical questions regarding later on today...oh, and Marius was looking for you," he said turning toward Caitlin at the end of his explanation. "Do I want to know...?"  
"This is exactly what it looks like, but please don't tell anyone else. It would only complicate things," Enjolras explained, calmly.  
"Well, I had better get going. I will go see if everyone signed that napkin, and then I will leave. Thanks for everything, you guys," she said, especially to Enjolras.

When Caitlin found Marius, he was asleep in a chair in the middle of the café. She woke him up with a bit of a start and they left together, never to return. They knew that their life together would be grand, they just had to leave before anything started. Once they got out of the general area where the commotion was to take place, Caitlin led Marius to the same place where she had come from, and they found their way to the phone booth-which was both unheard of in his time and completely obsolete in hers. They were then transported to June 5th, 2014 in Paris, where they were free to start their new life, together.


End file.
